I used to think, “Haha, lol, imagine spending 100 hours just to get a working system,” but I have been using Linux Mint for a long time, and I'm just getting so damn tired.

Age verification is rolling in; my PC is a ThinkPad, and it is not built different, so I can't even use Gentoo, and I might use BSD, but I'm not sure since I rely on Wi-Fi. Linux is becoming a botnet and is going to become the next Windows in the foreseeable future. Hell, if everything wasn't online, I would just put TempleOS on the PC and do my actual work in real life like a normal human being.

I would go the full DIY route, but I am hesitant. My hardware isn't meant for heavy compiling, so Gentoo is out. Arch might be an option, but I worry it will eventually bow down to age verification and tracking. Does anybody actually even use LFS?

Is it over? Will we all switch to BSD? What after BSD? I just want to use my system and not worry about glowies putting shit in it every second. My plan right now is to probably drag my PC across the room, plug into Ethernet, and try installing OpenBSD. If that doesn't work, I might just cry myself to sleep. Can you anons help me out? I genuinely just want to get away from all of this.

I think you're going to have a far easier time till that day were to so ever happen on every distro simply just sticking to linux. If you're using Linux right now, you're saving documents doing whatever then say if that distro is forced age verification you can just pull all your files off and switch to a distro without it. There is no point making your life harder than it needs to be simply for a day that may or may not happen on your particular distro.
If you're looking for a distro to use I'd recommend either using Artix or Void (musl variant preferred ) reasons being the removal of systemd and having a solid distro with packages.